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Healing Trauma through the Collaborative Change Model: The Essential Ingredients for Transformative Trauma Treatment

As therapists and other caring professionals we are exposed to multiple theoretical techniques when working with Complex Developmental Trauma. Yet we all know that our clients are not cookies; hence there is no one perfect cookie cutter approach that will work with everyone over time. Our work needs to be sensitive and informed by our client’s resources and vulnerabilities. These resources and vulnerabilities are often created within the context of oppression by a dominant cultural group. The Collaborative Change Model promotes healing through harnessing the natural cycle of change and having an acute Ethical Attunement to the client’s community, family, and internal contexts in which they live.

This intensive workshop will explore the elements of transformative trauma treatment -  The Collaborative Change Model.

Key Learning Concepts:

• Essential Elements for healing, change and growth
• Community Trauma and related concepts of Historical and Cultural Trauma emphasizing the shared experience of devastating harm within groups the cultural and political roots of personal and family pain.
• Using a strength- (resilience-) based framework to understand the connections between community trauma and personal trauma
• Identifying and developing strategies for creating safe and effective therapeutic relationships and developing strengths in trauma treatment, especially when working cross-culturally
• How to focus on the dynamic nature of self-regulation and co- regulation’ inside and outside of the office.

About the Presenters:

Mary Jo Barrett, MSW, is the Executive Director and founder of The Center for Contextual Change, Ltd. She holds a Masters in Social Work from the University of Illinois Jane Addams School of Social Work and is currently on the faculties of University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, The Chicago Center For Family Health, and the Family Institute of Northwestern University. Previously, Ms. Barrett was the Director of Midwest Family Resource and has been working in the field of family violence since 1974. Mary Jo was the first Family Preservation, in home counselor in the state of Illinois, on a contract with the Department of Children and Family Services in 1978.

Ms. Barrett’s newest book, Treating Complex Trauma: A Relational Blueprint for Collaboration and Change, co-authored by Linda Stone Fish, was released in June 2014.  Treating Complex Trauma was designed for both lay and professionals audiences to understand and harness the natural process of  healing and change after trauma.  This book captures over 25 years of interviews and describes what are the effective elements of therapy and how to organize the process.  

Ms. Barrett has also coauthored two books with Dr. Terry Trepper: Incest: A Multiple Systems Perspective and The Systemic Treatment of Incest: A Therapeutic Handbook. She co-created the Collaborative Change Model, a highly successful contextual model of therapy used to transform the lives of those impacted by abuse and/or traumatic
events.

Her trainings and published works focus on the teaching of the Collaborative Change Model, systemic and feminist treatment of  sexual abuse, interpersonal violence and complex trauma;  both survivors and offenders, adults and children,  and  eating disorders, couple therapy, and Compassion Fatigue.

Ms. Barrett provides consultations, workshops, courses and other training opportunities nationally and internationally to parents, social service professionals, lawyers, mental health staffs, psychotherapists, residential treatment facilities and governmental agencies. Ms. Barrett founded the Family Dialogue Project, which strives to redefine relationships with families impacted by allegations of abuse and trauma.

Anita Mandley, MS, LCPC, is an integrative psychotherapist practicing at The Center for Contextual Change, in Skokie, Illinois. Anita works with clients with Complex PTSD, Dissociative Disorders, Eating Disorders and a variety of self-injurious behaviors.   She works with different parts of her clients through a variety of therapeutic interventions, including relational therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Expressive Arts, Imagery, Somatic Experiencing and Somatic Touch for regulation and trauma resolution.   She is currently excited about her Integrative Trauma Recovery Group, ITR, a group therapy process she designed specifically for adults with Developmental and Complex PTSD.  Anita also enjoys providing supervision and consultation, as well as presenting workshops on a variety of topics.